i'm excited about the 365 days of astronomy project, where different people from anywhere in the world talk about their interest in, fascination of, or knowledge about a particular aspect of the universe! there will be a unique podcast available for everyone to listen to every day next year! and there are still many days available throughout the year for anyone to create podcasts, so i encourage anyone and everyone to participate!

i've agreed to create a couple podcasts throughout the year, but i wanted to ask you all a favor... i'm looking for inspiration for more topics to talk about and so i'd like to get your suggestions. what questions do you have about the universe? what would you like to hear someone talk about for 5-10 minutes? my research focuses on galaxy formation and evolution, but i would be willing and interested to talk about anything if an interesting question sparks an idea. the challenge for me, i think, is that i'm so used to using visual aids in the classroom or on this blog, that it will be exciting to create the proper effect via auditory senses only.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

what i miss most while traveling is my family. this holiday season, i won't be home for christmas. while i'm enjoying the discovery of many british christmas staples (i cant believe i'd never heard of christmas crackers!), i'm feeling a bit homesick for all my family traditions.

every year, my dad's side of my family gathers together on christmas day. i have about 35 cousins on that side, so you can imagine the epic size of the event! for as long as i can remember, we have sung christmas carols together at the gigantic gathering on christmas day. in preparation for the singing, an excited energy floats around the room while people refill their bourbon slushies and find their place around the room. one uncle always leads the songs, sometimes unintentionally beginning songs on notes that make certain later notes quite unattainable to average voices! many harmonies are attempted and some are proudly achieved - although some years are definitely better than others!

the infamous song that makes everyone perk up, prepare their ears, and roll their eyes is oh holy night! the several-part harmonies reveal themselves as the family's volume increases excitedly. the voices intensify toward the climax of the song, when my aunts and uncles stand up, comedically reach out their arms, and wail "oh niiiiight diviiii-iiiine!!!!!!" inevitably, there is always an encore of the last verse of this christmas song, because the final crescendo is just so satisfyingly hilarious! at the end of this battered carol, we all smile and clap, and laugh at ourselves once again.

after going thru 20 or 30 carols, the last song we sing is always jingle bells.... dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh.... as soon as this song begins, *santa* appears at the top of the stairs!! while we finish the song, he patiently makes his way to the christmas tree, through the rushing crowd of adoring children and jovial adults. at the end of the song we all cheer for santa and he tells us about his year. he usually adds a bad joke about the reds or the bengals or some other local college sports team. he distributes all the presents, one by one, with the aid of a few lucky little helpers. then we cheer him off again as he returns up the stairs to his sleigh.

when i was young and there were fewer family members, i grew to recognize santa as my uncle, mitch. now, it has become a little game to try to recognize who santa is among all of my too-grown-up boy cousins!

here's one of my favorite old pictures of the events - me, my cabbage patch doll and my mom singing with my cousin, her cabbage patch, and her mom... and the rest of the family!!!

the caroling spectacle was fun as a young child, horribly embarrassing as a teenager, and delightfully wholesome as an adult, because it's so much an endearing part of my family's culture. i will immensely miss the family gathering this year, so maybe i'll sing some carols by myself! happy holidays!

while walking around the ruins of pompeii, italy, the most famous of the cities devastated by the 79 AD eruption of mt. vesuvius, a rain storm hit, and the few visitors who braved the november chill, were covered by water from the sky. i didnt mind the rain, as i was prepared for the potential downpour, and the finals stages of the storm created a fantastic rainbow!

at the appearance of the rainbow, i scrambled around the larger-than-expected ancient city to find the best place to catch a glimpse of the full arch, and to take a few photos!

after finding my favorite spot, i relaxed for a while to look at the refractive phenomenon. the top color of the primary rainbow is red - then moving on down towards the inside of the arc you see red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet - roy g. biv. the colors are created because the raindrops act like little prisms as the sun rays pass thru them. sunlight gets reflected and refracted all over as it encounters the different surfaces of raindrops. the primary rainbow is created by those rays that pass into the raindrop, get reflected off the back surface, and then pass thru the surface of the raindrop again upon exiting! the light gets refracted twice - once for each time it passes through the raindrop's surface.

some parts of the rainbow appear brighter than others, dependent on the droplet size, and it also appears as if the sky below the rainbow is brighter than the sky above the rainbow!

in fact, the sky really is brighter below the rainbow! there is a lot of light exiting the raindrop after being once reflected inside. the most light emerges at 40-42 degrees, where we see the concentrated primary rainbow. there is also a lot of light that emerges at smaller angles than the rainbow ray, but almost no light emerges from the single internal reflection with angles greater than the rainbow ray. as a result, the excess of light scattered inside the arc causes the sky below the rainbow to look brighter than above!

yann arthus-bertrand is undertaking a fascinating project called 6 billion others. people talk honestly into a camera about various topics, like money, discrimination, lovers, nature, happiness, et cetera.

the camera angles of the people are very intimate, showing close-up head shots with great lighting. the people interviewed come from all over the world and their words are translated alongside their image. several times i listened to a few minute passage, with several people speaking on a particular topic... first time thru i read the translations, then the second time, i just listened without reading, watching their faces and listening to their sounds. i really enjoyed just listening to how the languages sound. fascinating!

i havent read this book yet, but i'm quite excited about its existence and will probably buy it soon. most physicists i know have active hobbies: music, art, sports (running seems the most popular, but i always find people to play soccer with)... but i wonder why there are not more ("out of the closet") astrophysicist writers and poets?

in light of this question, i want to share a poem i wrote quite a long time ago. i'm not saying this poem has a whole lot to do with actual astrophysics, or that i'm a poet... but still, i like it, so here it is.

angstrom anarchy

wishing on a star consoles for a minute and deceivesme into thinking my desires will come to be but i can't feel a star's touch or see and star smile and a twinkle only goes so far then leaves a void that something must fill and yet again that something turns into lonelinessbut not the kind of loneliness you feel while driving your carits the loneliness you feel when you alone sit in your room fumbling through every

with the one person that means everything to me and then i look out the open window on this clear night and see my first shooting star in two years and its a joyous occasion for shooting star wishes are worth at least ten eyelash wishes so i smile a colossal smile because i already know my wishwhich is to be ready and willing to let go and be free the day that anarchy once again meets utopia

Monday, December 15, 2008

continuing with the holiday spirit - here's a popular christmas song, especially for those of us living where winter is the season of christmas. i heard irving berlin's white christmas a few weeks ago performed by the halle orchestra and sung by tenor alfie boe. i'm not a huge fan of opera singing, but the words of the song felt so true to my situation this year, that i unexpectedly started crying, right there, alone in my seat at the royal concert hall! doesnt look likely that we'll have a white christmas in my part of the UK, but i'm still comforted by hearing the soothing bing crosby and marjorie reynolds sing this beautiful song!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

the day after thanksgiving, i received a huge box of fruit and vegetables that i signed up for from eden farms. i was a little burnt out on cooking, so i took a few days off from food preparation to eat my thanksgiving leftovers, all the while mulling over what i would cook. my favorite of the series was a butternut squash and carrot stew with quinoa pilaf, which was pretty close to the recipe i found at in my box.

my favorite part of using a "veg box" is that i cook very fresh produce that represents what is just to the point of ripening in my part of the world as i eat it. the winter vegetables are hearty roots and thick-leaf deep green greens, and those are exactly what i'm in the mood to cook right now! i dont want salads, i want stews, and curries, and hefty meals that will keep me warm amid this chilly british rain! yum!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

to get into the holiday spirit, listen to the brilliance of tchaikovsky's nutcracker suite, composed in 1891 and 92. here are videos of the piece performed by the berliner philharmoniker. the conductor, seiji ozawa, is also quite entertaining!

my favorite movement from the first part is the dance of the sugar plum fairies, starting around 3:40. and in the second video, dont miss the flower waltz, starting around 4:00, which includes an ethereal harp solo.

the sauce will still be thin at this point, so cool thoroughly, then place in refrigerator to cool and increase viscosity. i left mine to chill overnight, then stirred it a couple times throughout the day before serving it cold.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

i'm notoriously good at ending the blooming cycle of any plant that is supposed to flower. so i'm incredibly pleased that the office plant i inherited from the former user of this desk decided to flower this week!!

i think it remains unintutive, for the non-initiated, to imagine what it looks like when two galaxies collide, or what large-scale structure in the universe looks like. simulations created using the basic knowledge of gravitational interactions provide a lot of insight towards our understanding of structures in our universe, but they can also be incredibly beautiful on their own!

here is the trailer for the space art exhibition:

to view some more scientific (and gorgeous) movies of galaxy mergers, visit phil hopkins's old site at harvard. enjoy!